THE SMOOCH SEEN ROUND THE WORLD.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
Forget that romantic kiss Rhett Butler Rhett Butler is the handsome, dashing hero of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. The novel introduces him as the problem-solving pragmatist who is sure that the South cannot win a protracted war with the North. laid on Scarlet O'Hara in ``Gone With The Wind,'' or any of those other memorable Hollywood clinches of the past. The greatest kiss of all time was between a 27-year-old nurse and an unidentified sailor almost 60 years ago in Times Square on V-J V-J Victory over Japan (also seen as VJ) Day, Aug. 15, 1945. The Life magazine photograph of two strangers sharing a long, passionate kiss to mark the surrender of Japan The surrender of Japan in August 1945 brought World War II to a close. On August 10, 1945, after the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's leaders at the Imperial conference (gozenkaigi and the end of World War II End of World War II can refer to:
Romance was back. It was time to celebrate and party again. The war was over and we had won. Anything and everything was possible. The proof was right there in Life magazine - in that one passionate, unforgettable kiss. ``It's amazing how people still respond in awe to that photograph, especially when they find out I was the nurse,'' says 86-year-old Edith Shain Edith Shain claims to be the nurse in the iconic LIFE Magazine photo of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square, 1945[1] . The picture was taken by renowned photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, and is acclaimed as one of the most recognizable photos of the , a retired Los Angeles Unified School District The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California and the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. teacher who will be an honorary grand marshal Grand Marshal is a ceremonial, military, or political office of very high rank. The term has its origins with the word "Marshal" with the first usage of the term "Grand Marshal" as a ceremonial title for certain religious orders. in the Canoga Park Memorial Day Parade this year. ``Even the kids today are enchanted en·chant tr.v. en·chant·ed, en·chant·ing, en·chants 1. To cast a spell over; bewitch. 2. To attract and delight; entrance. See Synonyms at charm. by the romance of it. Posters of the picture are hanging in college dorms, and you see it re-created on women's handbags. ``It's amazing how long that kiss has lasted.'' She was just finishing her shift at Doctors Hospital in Manhattan when the news came over the radio. The war was over. ``If you were a New Yorker, you knew exactly where you had to go to celebrate - Times Square,'' Edith says. ``I grabbed one of the other nurses, and we jumped on the subway downtown. ``We got off at Times Square, and had walked only a short distance when this sailor grabbed me, spun me around, and kissed me. I let him. I thought this guy had been fighting for our country. He deserved a big kiss.'' When the kiss ended, Edith turned away from the sailor to find her friend, but instead found an Army guy wanting a kiss, too. ``After he kissed me I told my friend we better get out of there, so we left. I went home and never told my parents or anyone else about it for years because I was embarrassed,'' Edith said. The picture appeared inside the pages of Life the first time, later making the cover in retrospectives of the greatest photos the magazine ever published. ``I knew it was me because of the stockings,'' Edith said. ``Later, when I was older and not as embarrassed, I wrote the photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, asking for a copy of the picture. That started a whole, big hullabaloo.'' The famous photographer flew to Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. to verify Edith was the nurse he had shot in Times Square that day. The two became friends, and Eisenstaedt gave her a hardcover collection of his photographs with the inscription, ``To the one and only nurse photographed 8-15-45 in Times Square, New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . Love, Eisie.'' Edith was invited back to New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of for a big luncheon the magazine threw for her, and in 1980, Life ran a story about this married kindergarten teacher with three children living in Los Angeles who was the famous V-J Day kissing nurse. Eisenstaedt, who died in 1995, recounted how he chose Edith and the sailor that day because he was looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. contrast in the black and white pictures he was taking. ``The sailor was wearing his dark blue winter outfit and I was wearing a white nurse's uniform,'' she said. ``Eisie said we were perfect.'' The identity of the sailor has never been established, but Edith thinks it might be a man who now lives in Texas. ``I've had more than 20 calls from men who said they were the sailor, but this man sounded the most credible,'' Edith said last week waiting for her friend Aaron Rosenberg to stop by to take her to a movie. Rosenberg was on a cross-country car trip as a teenager with his parents when he first saw the famous photo in a Life magazine retrospective. ``I sat in the back seat trying to draw a picture of it because I loved the photograph,'' the now 39-year-old legal clerk said. ``It was the greatest picture of that generation representing the end of the war with romance and passion.'' He would finally get to meet Edith, a widow, in 1996 at a speakers conference in Bakersfield where she was part of a retrospective of the 1940s. ``Edith was backstage in her nurse's uniform talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" lecture, speech rebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to three former first ladies who were part of the speakers program,'' Aaron said. ``They were all thrilled to meet her. That picture touched everyone.'' Edith and Aaron became friends, and once a week they get together for dinner and a movie. ``It's like hanging out with a buddy; she's so cool,'' Rosenberg says, laughing at a recent picture the two had taken of them recreating the famous V-J Day photograph, sans the kiss. ``It's not just who she is, but how she is,'' he says. ``Edith is so full of vitality, and makes the people she meets feel so special. ``You should see their eyes light up when they find out she's the nurse in the photograph of the greatest kiss of all time.'' Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Edith Shain, the nurse in the iconic kissing photo marking the end of World War II, will be grand marshal of the Canoga Park Memorial Day Parade. David Sprague/Staff Photographer (2) This is a page from Life magazine in 1990 showing Edith's letter to photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt and his acknowledgment. |
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